Cars Emit More Black Carbon Than Previously Thought 292
First time accepted submitter LilaG writes "Gasoline-burning engines put out twice as much black carbon as was previously measured, according to new field methods tested in Toronto. The tiny particles known as black carbon pack a heavy punch when it comes to climate change, by trapping heat in the atmosphere and by alighting atop, and melting, Arctic ice. With an eye toward controlling these emissions, researchers have tracked black carbon production from fossil fuel combustion in gasoline-burning cars and diesel-burning trucks. Until this study was published [abstract of paywalled article], gas-burning vehicles had been thought to be relatively minor players."
Here it comes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody put on your flame retardant suits in preparation for the inevitable flame war between global warming believers and deniers, which will almost certainly drown out discussion of the technical specifics of the referenced materials.
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It's not that I deny global warming. It's just that I'm all for it.
Re:Here it comes. (Score:5, Funny)
canadian?
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I'm not a denier, or a supporter - I just think it's inevitable.
China and India are going to have the last word on this issue. I'll leave it to them to fix it. Baring a pandemic, it's going to be their world anyway. This is neither good nor bad, it just is.
There are more capitas (Score:3)
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Man, I hope you're young enough to eat those words and choke on them.
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Bah. I, for one, look forward to any sort of global warming, provided the warmest region does not exceed 160 F in the shade.
All I need are for those polar ice caps to melt, I am *this* close to having a beach on my front lawn. Mind you, we'll lose New Jersey & California in the process, but that may be a welcome trade (I get rid of Jersey Shore and the MPAA / RIAA in one go).
Who's with me?
Re:Here it comes. (Score:5, Insightful)
True global warming "believers" don't believe, they looked at the available evidence and weighed the opinions of experts and came to a conclusion based on facts and consensus.
I don't know which side you fall on, so this isn't directed to you, but my personal theory is that people who dismiss the international scientific consensus on global warming have faith that it's not happening, and figure that the "believers" are also arguing based on faith. It's the same as evolution - creationists don't believe in science, so they think that the arguments they fight are based on belief.
I refuse to play into this. Undoubtedly there are people that "believe" in global warming, and they tend to do things like buy Priuses to replace their 25 MPG Toyotas.
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Re:Here it comes. (Score:4, Informative)
Consensus in science is when most of the scientists in a field (except for the crackpots) quite arguing about something because they have nothing to argue about. They all agree on the particulars of a point.
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Most != many. It's more along the lines of the prevailing theory of the day...the point being that the theories are often mutable.
And again, as a scientist, the public sees more of a consensus that what actually exists in most fields of science.
But then, feel free to argue that I'm wrong. I have a hypothesis that you will.
Consensus is also when groupthink happens (Score:5, Informative)
Or when you hit the limits of knowledge at the time. Good example would be Newton's laws as applied to planetary motion. Newton was able to work out a great deal about gravity on a universal scale, and how bodies worked in a two body system. However it broke down when he tried to apply it to the multi-body of the solar system. So he invokes god for the first and only time in the Principia "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
This remained the scientific consensus on the matter. Newton was more or less The Guy when it came to physics. In two books (Principia and Opticks) he did more to advance the understanding of physics than more or less anyone before or hence. So this remained what scientists though for many years. You could explain gravity in terms of a two body problem, but the complexity of the heavens? God did it.
Up until Laplace. He worked out a method for figuring it all out. He could explain the stability of the solar system without invoking god. When asked by Napoleon about why he didn't mention god he said "I had no need of that hypothesis." (for a great talk on all this watch Dr. Tyson's "The god of the gaps").
Now the point of all this is that just because there is a general consensus on something, doesn't mean it is right. Doesn't mean it is wrong either, but trying to say something like "only the crackpots would argue with consensus," is silly. There have been things that were the consensus that was believed, until a better theory was proposed and tested.
Feynman also gives a good example of the groupthink type of activity with regards to that Millikan's value for the charge of an electron. To quote:
"It's a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that."
Right there you can see the effects of a sort of scientific groupthink. "My result is too far off from the accepted value, something must be wrong."
Just keep in mind that science isn't about consensus. That there is a consensus doesn't mean it is right, or wrong. Also be wary when people appeal to consensus, that's what you see in advertisements, not science. When people talk about evolution, they talk about evidence, not consensus.
Re:Consensus is also when groupthink happens (Score:5, Insightful)
But Newton (and the consensus behind him) wasn't wrong. It was just incomplete.
And that is the status of AGW too. There's enough science to know that the fundamental greenhouse effect from CO2 etc. is correct. And to know humans increase the CO2 in the atmosphere. But there's obviously plenty more to to be added to scientific understanding of the effect.
There's no right/wrong dichotomy. And the deniers are deluded if they think that one day something is going to be discovered that makes if all disappear in a flurry of "mea culpa!'
Yet you seem to think there is such a dichotomy (Score:5, Insightful)
There are believers and deniers to you. There seems to be no room for anything else. You are either a true believer, or an evil denier.
I think you mistake what some people claim. They don't claim there will be a big event of "Oh we were all wrong about everything, nothing is getting warmer!" Rather, they think that time will show that the panic was for naught. They believe the theory of action is sound, the predicted results are not.
For example perhaps the warming is not as much as predicted. That is a valid position since it is all based on computer modeling (and remember models don't prove anything, they model and predict) and as the models have been revised, the estimates for the warming have gone down. Compare the official IPCC prediction from 1990 to the one from 2001. The predicted warming is much less. Neither match the actual temperature record for the past 10 years so perhaps further revision is required.
Or as another example, perhaps the warming is not problematic. If you read the reports you'll see there is far form a consensus on that. There are multiple scenarios, which are not assigned probabilities. Even among those who are part of the consensus (for lack of a better term) there is disagreement over what might happen and their scenarios are not exhaustive.
Those are examples of the arguments some people make. Not that it is all a bunch of made up bullshit (yes I'm aware some people make that argument too) that'll get exposed as such, but that it is being blown way out of proportion and we'll look back on it and say "Well that was much ado about nothing."
Re:Yet you seem to think there is such a dichotomy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet you seem to think there is such a dichotomy
No, I think there's shades of grey, with the same old deniers stopping at each shade for a while along the way. Then moving on after they find the old shade of grey untenable. As I posted elsewhere:
The Republican 9 Step Global Warming Denial Plan
1) There's no such thing as global warming.
2) There's global warming, but the scientists are exaggerating. It's not significant.
3) There's significant global warming, but man doesn't cause it.
4) Man does cause it, but it's not a net negative.
5) It is a net negative, but it's not economically possible to tackle it.
6) We need to tackle global warming, so make the poor pay for it.
7) Global warming is bad for business. Why did the Democrats not tackle it earlier?
8) ????
9) Profit.
Re:Consensus is also when groupthink happens (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting you bring up Newton, because we still use Newtonian physics today for most purposes. Nobody is using quantum physics to model valvetrain dynamics, for example. We use simple molecular models even to figure out how the air will move through the valves. If you're trying to figure out where a bullet goes, you can ask Newton.
If you're trying to figure out how to reduce AGW, you can work on what you know you're doing wrong, and much of that is CO2 and soot emissions.
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I made no comment on what I think about global warming or CO2 emissions. I don't in these debates not because I don't have an opinion but because I find it more instructive to see what positions people ascribe to me.
The reason I brought up Newton was not to bash on the man, he was a genius without equal. I was simply using it as a demonstration of the limits of knowledge, that even the greatest can face, and how those limits can change.
My point is simply that consensus isn't something you can point to and s
Re:Consensus is also when groupthink happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading your comment made me think of Isaac Azimov's essay The Relativity of Wrong. [tufts.edu] To quote from it:
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Re:Here it comes. (Score:4, Insightful)
but my personal theory is that people who dismiss the international scientific consensus on global warming have faith that it's not happening, and figure that the "believers" are also arguing based on faith.
You could just ask some real skeptics, the kind who actually do science, why they dismiss the 'scientific consensus.' [wsj.com]
the claim of 97% support is deceptive. The surveys contained trivial polling questions that even we would agree with. Thus, these surveys find that large majorities agree that temperatures have increased since 1800 and that human activities have some impact..... But what is being disputed is the size and nature of the human contribution to global warming.
It drives me crazy when people point to a survey like this that shows 97% consensus, and then say, "therefore scientists all think we should send a hundred billion a year to poor countries [guardian.co.uk]." There's no scientific consensus on that at all, nor is there any consensus that there will be a disaster as a result of AGW. If people even read the questions of the surveys they quote, they would understand this.
Ya I think peopel confuse the argument (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem I see is that someone gets labeled a "denialist" if they don't take everything, part and parcel. If they disagree with anything an advocate says they are a "denialist" and "ignoring science". Well no, because there are different levels to the whole thing. To run it down:
--First there's fact of global warming: That average surface temperature is increasing, outside of known cycles. This is a claim of fact, a claim of an observation about what is. Provided the measurements it is based on are accurate, it isn't up for debate. Only thing you can question is if the measurements are indeed correct.
--Then there's the theory to explain that fact: That the primary or exclusive cause of this warming is an increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere due to human emissions. This is the basic theory of global warming. It is a scientific theory, in that it proposes a logical explanation for the relation of the facts at hand. Like all theories, it can be argued. You can agree with all the facts underlying a theory, but disagree with the theory as the explanation because it is incomplete, because it can be falsified, etc.
Now if that's all there was, then ok. However we go on.
--Next there's the assumption/assertion that this change is a net bad thing for humanity. This is not a theory, this is a claim based on some theories and some hypothesis, often with flimsy or no evidence. This isn't a situation where you have a single theory you can evaluate. You have all kinds of claims being made, and also other claims being dismissed or ignored. It is an overall position that the many changes will be a net negative to humanity, even a catastrophe.
--Finally there's the policy/politics of what to do about it: That the only solution is to massively decrease CO2 output and to achieve this we use things like carbon credits and so on. This is not at all in the realm of science, this policy, or politics. There are other suggested solutions that could be debated for their merits, there is question if this solution would even be effective over all. However it is the one that many advocates seem to propose as the One True Way(tm).
So therein lies the problem. Anyone who dares disagree with any part of this is lumped in as a "denialist". Someone could say "I agree with the measurements, and I think they theory of warming is correct. However I disagree it will be a net negative, I think it will be a net positive," and they get labeled as a "denalist," and "anti-science." Someone could even say "I agree it is happening and is a net negative, however I don't think CO2 reduction will help, I think we need to instead spend money to be able to deal with the change, since even if it didn't happen, another non-man made change would anyhow and we need to survive them," and again with the "denialist" and "anti-science" claims.
Hence why people start talking about AGW proponents as being true believers and acting like religious folk. It is this position of "You have to accept and agree with EVERYTHING, otherwise you are a moron/against us/etc." Sorry but that isn't how science works. If you want to talk science you have to limit your debate to scientific theories and facts (remember facts are observations about what is, theories explain the relations of the facts). That doesn't mean you can't talk about what should be done, but you can't claim that the "science" only supports one answer. That's not how it works.
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The reason we must control CO2 output if it affects global weather (and there is every bit of evidence that it does — the same physicists you trust to make stuff work can tell you why CO2 causes global warming) is that we have no viable strategy for fixing it.
We have technically feasible solutions but they depend on even greater changes in lifestyle which is why they probably won't happen. But we can control our CO2 output, force people to buy credits which (should) result in trees planted and so on.
See? Again with what I'm talking about (Score:3)
If anyone is unwilling to accept everything claimed, part and parcel, or even if they point out this fact (please note I never stated how I feel about any of this) they are a denier. This is precisely what I'm talking about, this is precisely the problem I'm talking about.
Also, I hate to break it to you, but if you want someone to buy in to a proposed solution to something, particularly one that is likely to be very costly, you DO have to go through all of it. You first have to show that the facts on which
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This [dismissing AGW deniers] is precisely what I'm talking about, this is precisely the problem I'm talking about.
You believe it's a problem. Have you proved it's a problem? Have you proved the problem is significant? Have you proved we caused it? Have you proved there is a net negative to this so called problem? How to you propose to tackle the problem? Is it economically viable? We've seen instances of so called problems that look a bit like this in the past, so what's significant about it this time?
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http://www.mamieyoung.com/dailydawdle/Create%20a%20better%20world%20for%20nothing.jpg [mamieyoung.com]
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"True global warming "believers" don't believe, they looked at the available evidence and weighed the opinions of experts and came to a conclusion based on facts and consensus."
As do a fair number of people on the other side (review the facts, and come up wanting). To believe that your side is made up of all the scientists, and the other side purely people with "faith" is to deny that the other side, in an objective manner, could possibly have any merit to their argument. It's the same argument religious fa
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You use that word, consensus, and I do not think you understand what it means. There have, many times, in the due course of history, been scientific consensuses about any number of topics; a number of them have, thus far, been proven, and a number of them, thus far, proven wrong. As such, that word is not a form of currency that gives your argument or side any worth.
For a self professed scientist you don't know much probability theory. It would only not give any worth, it the number of times a scientific consensus was wrong was equal to the number of times one was correct.
If you think those two numbers are approximately equal, then your knowledge of science history is as bad as your knowledge of probability.
Note that in reality of course there isn't a right/wrong dichotomy. It's more often a case of not yet complete. For example strictly speaking Newton's Laws of Motio
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If the doctor tells you that lump on your body means you need a heart transplant, do you trust the doctor, or do you ask for a second opinion?
You go to a doctor, he does a biopsy and tells yo you have cancer, need to do chemotherapy and give up smoking. The chemo is going to make you nauseous for many months and make your hair fall out, and you don't really want to give up smoking so yo go to another doctor with a reputation for saying everything is going to be all right. Your second opinion says everything is going to be all right. Forget the Chemo, and keep on smoking.
Now you have one of each opinion, so you're not sure. And being wealthy you d
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The problem is that there are "believers" on both sides of the fence. So you've got the Big Oil-faithful, and you've got the Magic Carbon Pixie-faithful. The former are probably wrong, the latter are probably right for the wrong reasons.
The global warming believers - when they're not gibbering on about homeopathy and astrology - will go on at length about how over the past decade we've seen record high temperatures in summer. Of course, because they're only parrotting what they've read online or heard fr
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The global warming believers - when they're not gibbering on about homeopathy and astrology
That's not a reasonable association. AGW is science, homeopathy and astrology are anti-science.
That association only reveals something about you. That you think AGW is for hippies.
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No, I think blind AGW faith is for the kind of credulous fools that believe any old rubbish the press throws at them without bothering to examine the facts.
AGW is anti-scientific nonsense.
Re:Here it comes. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't help but wonder if there are hordes of AGW deniers with sockpuppets at the ready. The way anybody criticizing them gets modded down quickly first and then recovers slowly by getting modded back up by reasonable people suggests this.
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I have seen a pattern.
And the people who don't believe in AGW have no scientific arguments because they don't know the science.
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From the link: "The well over 1,000 dissenting scientists are almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers."
Oh wow!!! LOL!
You
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.
From the link: "The well over 1,000 dissenting scientists are almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers."
Oh wow!!! LOL!
You can tell that the guy who wrote this was a producer for Rush Limbaugh's show.
How sad, what riches awaited you in the next paragraph. If only you could have made the jump of a blank line....but I guess you can only expect so much of people. But still, it is odd that you chose to stop there. It is almost as if you didn't want people to read the next paragraph at the link [climatedepot.com]. I wonder why?
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Garbage.
All these facts, which may indeed be true, are not in context and not particularly relevant. I have noticed that the deniers are masterly at taking statements out of context. I would prefer to hear what these scientists have to say on global warming, not what mud they may be slinging at each other. That is, do they conclude that we are indeed experiencing global warming, and that we are causing it? And most importantly, why do they think so?
Zorita thinks we are seeing AGW. Read this quote f
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Tell me, what's your feelings on 9/11 being an inside job? The moon landings? Roswell?
Re:Here it comes. (Score:4, Insightful)
TL;DR.
But I got as far as your first laughable reference.
Third, it is trivially proven that there is no genuine consensus among scientists that the warming is caused by humanity, or what to do about it.
The page promises "More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims" I followed the link,and opened the 321 PDF. I look at a few random entries. I see economists, they're not scientist. I see the curator of the invertebrates dept of a museum. If he has qualifications at all they are in biology.
This isn't a list of scientists. It's a list of people. Some of them might be scientists, but not on the pages I happened to skim. And if there are a number of actual scientists there, how many are in fields relating to climate?
All you've got there is a list of 1000 right wing idiots, some of who have managed to get letters after their name.
Re:Here it comes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fortunately, the methodology is terribly sloppy anyway, so there's nothing serious to discuss. The researchers directly measured 30 trucks. Then they measured the total cloud of particles downwind of the traffic. There was more carbon than they'd expect given the measured value for trucks and the estimated value for cars. Therefore the cars must be emitting much more on average. Oddly, they never directly measured any cars. The idea that the additional black carbon might be due to some other source besides the cars was apparently not considered.
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Thank you for your sanity. Both the EPA and the design engineer know exactly how much PM is coming out the pipe for every model. Every company doing engines of any sort has spent billions or tens of billions on meeting emissions requirements.
By the way, I've read some interesting speculation that limiting soot emissions actually speeds up global warming. Nobody is saying we should pollute more, just that clean air doesn't obscure sunlight as much and therefore retards global warming. This was speculated
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Re:Here it comes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Although it is possible that the other source was the tires from the vehicles.
I have never seen an explanation of tire and asphalt wear that seemed like it accurately explained what is happening to the rubber compounds in the tire, as the road does not build up, but rather wear down.
The emissions from gasoline engines in modern motor vehicles is amazingly low, so tires and lubricants might actually be noticeable. But this is just speculation, sort of like the conclusions of the report.
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> Although it is possible that the other source was the tires from the vehicles.
Or the breaks. Both wear down, and both wear carbon. You don't need a scientific study to understand that it is going somewhere. Assuming it is not burned, it would most likely end up as carbon black.
And there are a few studies on this topic, it is just not as "hot" as engine emissions.
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Even older engines are surprisingly clean if they're well-maintained. It also helps if you run on cleaner fuels, which is why I'm converting my 1988 Citroen CX to run on gas.
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Ever tried polishing something without polishing compound?
Sand and dirt blow onto the road and fall off of cars along with rust. All used to grind the road down.
Touch the road, touch your car's tire, the road is wearing the tires away into dust which yes, blows everywhere, accumulates under your vehicle, et cetera. But it's not the tires wearing away the road, it's the grit.
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Well, with the Baltic Dry Index [investmenttools.com] (which is a measure of shipping costs) being at a 10 year low because there are more ships touting for business than goods to be shipped, you're not going to see bunker oil replaced as a fuel any time soon.
Much like jet fuel, this source of pollution is inviolable in the eyes of the political class, because it is too important to the way the economy works. They'll push gasoline to $10 / gallon (diesel is already almost there in the UK) before they even consider making it mor
First things first (Score:2)
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Then again, the earth is flat! Anyone who disagrees with the flat earth is a Flat Earth Denier! Heretic! How dare you go against the almighty consensus that the earth is flat!!!!
I find this to be the most interesting argument to go against modern scientific consensus. The reason I find it interesting is that intellects and scientest have known the earth is round for a very long time. It was mostly the Church and the public that thought the earth was flat. The idea that the earth is round [wikipedia.org] dates back 2600 years and 1700 years ago it was a given.
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I find this to be the most interesting argument to go against modern scientific consensus. The reason I find it interesting is that intellects and scientest have known the earth is round for a very long time. It was mostly the Church and the public that thought the earth was flat.[dubious - citation does not support this view] The idea that the earth is round [wikipedia.org] dates back 2600 years and 1700 years ago it was a given.
In your eagerness to bash the church and the public(I'm assuming you're referring to Christianity as church?), you forget how many early scientists were part of it. As far as I can see from your source, the public and the church have been aware of a round earth for an extremely long time. It isn't like a any doctrinal problems result from a round earth, so why should the church deny it? And it is likely that those of the public that thought about such things would know too. Please see this article [wikipedia.org], to under
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Your post consists of pure fantasies. You're seriously never bothered to verify the actual science behind any of that, right?
The carbon cycle is a balance
No. (Source, Geocarb III and others)
When the ocean starts to become acidic
Which is not projected to ever happen, by any scientist. The ocean pH varies by an order of magnitude more than the slight change we _think_ we might've seen over the last few hundred years.
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You either forgot to finish with "God Bless America", or "...you tree-hugging socialist."
I know you had a point, but fuck, man, learn to make it. Has the alcohol killed off your capacity to fully express your rage, or is the thought so fleeting that it's gone by the time your spleen-venting is over?
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Contrary to popular myth, wrapping your posts in <tt> tags does not make you look clever or creative. In fact, I have it on good authority that it actually makes you look like a pretentious moron.
Re:Here it comes. (Score:4, Informative)
Almost all gas engines use smog pumps these days, including Honda. The pump isn't there to dilute the gases, it's to supply fresh oxygen to the mix to allow remaining unburnt gas to finish combusting so the catalytic converter can deal with it.
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You think Obama is worse than Bush? Worse than Cheney??
The $4/gallon gas of 2008 may be one of the best things that happened. Woke up the auto manufacturers, got them to pay attention to fuel economy, and be ready to produce gas sippers to meet sudden surges in demand for such vehicles. We're in much better shape for the next gas price spike. Gas is even higher than $8/gallon in Britain. Somehow, their economy still functions. I love the way you all scream about the economy as if it's such a delicat
Only cars? (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:2)
Okay, I know to RTFA is unheard of, but
So, no. My choice of engine is vindicated once again. Now if I can just get my 300SD back on the road I win. Wastegate's sticking.
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Well, doesn't sound like a problem if you don't care about the (presumably stock) turbo blowing, dumping a ton of oil into the intake, causing a runaway, possibly bent rods, and possibly shot bearings.
Open means it's slow as molasses, but at least the turbo isn't gonna blow.
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Well, doesn't sound like a problem if you don't care about the (presumably stock) turbo blowing, dumping a ton of oil into the intake, causing a runaway, possibly bent rods, and possibly shot bearings.
Yeah, pretty much. I've got a gauge teed into the WG control line and a boost gauge hooked up, and just as soon as I replace my rear brake lines so I can hold a load on the engine I'll go back to boost testing.
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SO ... that cargo ship with a 111,143 cubic inch Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine, or that Train running a GM EMD 710 (710 cubic inch V12 diesel) doesn't count?
Don't be an arse
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Go read the title. Now go read the summary. Now realize that nothing you have said contradicts either in any way. Now go away.
Just in case you're still confused (seems likely) the situation is that gasoline produces more soot than previously believed, because it is so small and fine that it was previously undetected, whereas diesel still produces just as much soot as ever, but we already knew how much soot it produced; theoretically, about twice as much as gasoline, which turns out to not be the case. Diese
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"researchers have tracked black carbon production from fossil fuel combustion in gasoline-burning cars and diesel-burning trucks."
or did you just choose to ignore diesel in that sentence?
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...the scientists compared those data with estimates of total black carbon based on expected black carbon emissions of diesel- and gasoline-burning vehicles.
This paper covers both gasoline and diesel.
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Climate change is not the problem with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does this treat particulates as only a concern because they contribute to climate change? That's a potential problem, to be sure, but particulate emissions are a much more immediate environmental concern for those breathing them in. If the levels have been underestimated this much, that's a problem for people's health, especially along highways and in cities. Why does climate change have to be the be all and end all of all environmental impact discussions? Is it because it's so contentious and the ongoing feud drives page hits?
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If the levels have been underestimated this much, that's a problem for people's health, especially along highways and in cities.
Actually no, if the levels have been underestimated this much, that means the tolerable level of pollution before someone gets cancer is much higher than had been previously calculated. This is such good news, I think I'm going to light myself up a cigar.
Re:Climate change is not the problem with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does this treat particulates as only a concern because they contribute to climate change? That's a potential problem, to be sure, but particulate emissions are a much more immediate environmental concern for those breathing them in. If the levels have been underestimated this much, that's a problem for people's health, especially along highways and in cities. Why does climate change have to be the be all and end all of all environmental impact discussions? Is it because it's so contentious and the ongoing feud drives page hits?
Because a short term, localised and fairly minor reduction in people's health is a much smaller problem than an irreversible change to the climate and biosphere of the entire planet. Even if your only concern is health, people's health will suffer a lot more when they have to deal with economic hardship and resource shortages that could result from climate change.
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> particulate emissions are a much more immediate environmental concern
Agreed. And I have a potential explanation, too. Every once in a while you will encounter a vehicle that is dragging a black smoke cloud behind it - usually caused by a faulty Diesel engine. Just yesterday I was behind an especially bad example: I thought he was using it as some kind of camouflage - that's how dense it was.
So my theory is that most of the particle emissions come from very few vehicles: maybe some very old ones, but ce
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The interesting thing about diesel particulates is that they're not the problem.
Diesels don't emit much in the way of microfine particulates, ESPECIALLY ones that are spewing clouds of soot - they emit big huge (easily visible to the eye) particulates that fall out of the air relatively quickly, and don't go nearly as deep in the lungs as the microfines from gasoline engines.
In other words, what you can see is relatively harmless, what you can't see is the really dangerous stuff.
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By the way, the concentration of carbon in the air in densely populated areas has been dropping for over a century, and
Turn off car when stopped at lights (Score:5, Informative)
Just one more reason I turn my car off instead of idling gas away when I know I'll be stopped for more than 30 seconds--stopped at a red light, waiting for someone, etc. The break even point (idling vs. gas used when re-starting car and offsetting battery drain) is around 10 seconds, I'd previously heard up to 20 seconds.
This makes even more sense in several US cities I've visited, where some red lights last for 1-3 minutes!
If this is too pooh-pooh environmentalist BS for you, then approach it from a selfish point of view--you're wasting gas and therefore money. If you're idling for 5 minutes a day, after a year that's 10 gallons wasted gas a year if you have a small-engine car, or 20 gallons for a V8. Do the math with your area's current gas prices, and sure, $30-$100 over one year isn't THAT much, but it's not pocket change either.
Source [thehcf.org], which also addresses old myths that say why we should idle.
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You, much like that article seem to be forgetting the wear cost on the vehicle. Starting unless there's a pre-oil pump even when the vehicle is hot does damage, and you're also causing hard stress damage to other components restarting the car like that. Timing chains, more so belts on most vehicles. Bearings, gaskets and so on don't take shutting off and restarting off and on in rapid succession very well. Especially with all the lightweight materials we use in engines these days.
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Even better, auto stop/start systems should be made mandatory on all vehicles.
Except EVs of course, that don't need it. EVs are the future. They're not yet ready for most people, but the tipping point when they are a better option for most people than ICE will come.
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Stop and go traffic isn't really a problem in most cars with auto start/stop.
With a manual gearbox, the engine will only stop if you're at a standstill, in neutral with the clutch released. It'll start up again as soon as you push in the clutch. In stop and go traffic, you are rarely completely still for more than a few seconds.
In cars with automatic gearboxes, there is usually a delay of 5-10 seconds before the engine stops. It starts up again as soon as you release the brake, of course. I believe some car
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Actually, you change down to maintain control of the car better, particularly when you have a long downhill stretch with tight bends.
You need to do this on automatics, too, otherwise you will overheat the brakes quickly - not to mention making the car horribly unstable and wobbly to drive.
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Have fun replacing your ignition/starter every year. Similar to the people who downshift at any decline to save their brakes...
Once the vehicle is heated up it's usually trivial to start. The wear on the starter is negligible any time it's not overheated, and it won't take long. The battery, too; the surface charge will be drawn off right quick, but little will happen to the deeper charge as you'll be able to start within a second or so.
Downshifting to go down a hill puts less load on the system than driving up a hill does by definition, because ignition is reduced or even eliminated, depending on the complexity of the system inclu
No surprise (Score:2)
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I've rebuilt an engine, or participated in same anyway, and I couldn't have guessed that gasoline produced as much soot as diesel, because I'm not that good with chemistry/physics. What you can see when you take the engine apart is certainly related to what happens in the combustion chamber, but it doesn't necessarily all lie out before you.
Another reason to electrify the fleet (Score:2)
Global warming concerns aside, particulate matter, especially fine particulate matter is known to aggravate respiratory issues in humans causing deaths and hospitalizations.
Moving high concentrations of these pollutants away from population centers through electrification will improve the health of people living near roads.
Yes - power plants should have improved scrubbers installed as well to reduce their particulate emissions as well.
Whats so special about Arctic Ice ? (Score:2)
'The tiny particles known as black carbon pack a heavy punch when it comes to climate change, by trapping heat in the atmosphere and by alighting atop, and melting, Arctic ice.'
Oh well, at least the Antarctic and Glacial Ice arent effected.
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That's because some of us are dumb.
Oil is too valuable to burn. We can make fuel from air and dirty water as feedstocks, by leaving them lie so they grow algae. (Well, actually you stir them, but you can do that with solar and/or wind.) There's just no need to pump oil, which has all kinds of lovely long-chain hydrocarbons useful for making a variety of substances, and turn it into fuel. We should pump it and turn it into plastics. The plastics should be recycled when used up, and made into more plastics. T
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We can make fuel from air and dirty water as feedstocks, by leaving them lie so they grow algae.
Then how come no one is doing it on a commercial scale? Congress mandated that a certain percentage of our fuel come from "bio-fuels", which is what you are describing. The oil companies all paid a large fine last year for failing to meet that goal and will pay an even larger one this year, because no one is able to make sufficient quantities to meet that mandate. If and when someone figures out how to produce bio-fuels on a large scale, cost-effective level, it may become true that it is stupid to burn fos
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Not everyone agrees on the need to wash oneself from time to time. I suspect there's a fair degree of overlap.
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There is already a solution electric cars for cleaner cities with far more energy efficient power plants at a distance from the city and able to implement more stringent pollution controls.
I know electric cars will generally be slower and have much lower range making the inconvenient to use but, that's not a negative that's a positive the more inconvenient the less people will tend to use them. So legislate compact, light weight electric vehicles and quite simply ban the toxic infernal combustion engine
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quite simply ban the toxic infernal combustion engine from metropolitan areas, complete total 100% ban.
So then I'd need to keep two vans on the road, and somehow devise some way to drive both to work just in case I needed to go into the city centre?
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And move all the smog away to where you run the big dirty radioactive coal generation plants because people are so scared of nuclear energy? Sounds about right...
Fact is, if we want to solve the problem, we need to look at alternative energy sources before we start forcing people to electric. Otherwise all you do is shift the problem. I read somewhere that the batteries used in these cars have a bigger carbon footprint(to manufacture) than a normal vehicle over its entire lifespan... I'm too lazy to find yo
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And move all the smog away to where you run the big dirty radioactive coal generation plants because people are so scared of nuclear energy? Sounds about right...
Fact is, if we want to solve the problem, we need to look at alternative energy sources before we start forcing people to electric.
Wrong, and wrong. First, just moving to EVs would reduce automobile-related emissions by about 15% simply by taking advantage of reduced emissions of higher efficiency; you can approach 50% efficiency with a steam turbine system but a car-mounted ICE is lucky to bang around 25% (for a tiny turbodiesel) and that's before drivetrain losses. Second, we do not need to do it before, we can do it simultaneously. One of the benefits of EVs is that if you improve the emissions of a power plant then you effectively
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And move all the smog away to where you run the big dirty radioactive coal generation plants because people are so scared of nuclear energy? Sounds about right...
Per unit of energy, those coal burning power plants are more efficient and less polluting than the internal combustion engines in cars.
So your argument doesn't follow.
Besides, there's already plenty of alternative energy technology options. They just need rolling out. We're a long way from 100% renewable, but every percentage point increase is an improvement, and automatically translates into lower pollution from plug-in EVs that are already on the road.
I read somewhere that the batteries used in these cars have a bigger carbon footprint(to manufacture) than a normal vehicle over its entire lifespan...
No doubt you did. The automobile companies that are s
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The debate is not whether the Earth can handle it or not, it's whether human civilization can handle it or not. The only real solution is to stop increasing greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere. Anything else is just window dressing.
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Or better yet, elect people who will put you through a hellish tomorrow to keep the status quo of yesterday, no matter how unsustainable today. Never show fear, and if the math doesn't work out change the numbers.
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We do more harm to the earth by damage to the filter(s) that should clean harmful substances from the air and water than all the cars on earth.
Feed lots on major rivers, that flow into salt water, that become "dead zones", no longer able to filter the air, or sustain sea life..
Clear cutting rain forests..
Ignoring the decertification of large areas of Africa and Asia.
You could strip the emission controls off of every car on earth and still not equal the harm done by the damage we are doing to the natural filtering mechanisms...
Cars are an easy, LAZY, target.. Almost everyone has one in their driveway, or can see one nearby.. Not everyone has a feedlot between their home and workplace.. Add to that that the industrial food complex seems to have much more lobbying money behind it than the auto industry...
I'm in no way denying global warming. I'm just saying we need to target the actual sources of continuing environmental damage, and not copy the "security theater" we see in our airports.. This is too important an issue to play politics with...
I think you're getting way too excited. Sure, we could do better at not "soiling our own nest", so to speak. I totally agree that reasonable and sane protections against such things as dangerous air pollution levels and the harmful polluting of rivers, lakes, streams, and the oceans with dangerous chemicals and toxins are only reasonable, sensible, and wise. Part of that equation also has to be costs in relation to the results, both as a matter of raw wealth taken from society, and as a matter of loss of in
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Uhm, no. The heater plugs are on for about ten seconds before you start the engine.
If your diesel engine is making *any* visible smoke at all there's something wrong with it. Diesels don't produce smoke when they are working properly.
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The glow plug controller isn't current-controlled, it's a monostable driving a big relay. If you're lucky, it might sense underbonnet temperature and back off from a maximum in the coldest temperatures of about 20 seconds, right down to about 5 seconds when it's fairly warm.
Modern common-rail diesels don't have them at all.
If your diesel is making smoke under load, you have a claggy air filter or you've fiddled with the fuelling and got it wrong.